Blender

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Infographics with blender. The functional art of datavisualization and infographics applied on the blender most used practices of python scripting and modelling.

A collection of tutorials from around the web and a complete lesson. I got a small charge for a data visualization some week ago. This was my very first animation done with blender, although I’ve been working with a blender designer some years ago for this video. I’m not satisfied of my work, but I had to finish it in a different way than what I thought in the beginning, so here it is, complete of graphical errors. Anyway i learned a lot of things about blender since the beginning of this work, in particular about python scripting; this post is about the tutorial which I wish I could follow and which I followed indeed, to finish the infographic work.
Cycles tests - the new blender CPU/GPU renderer of awesomeness - Page 176. Blender-Cycles Ray Length node output ~ Agus's 3D box.

As I promised I'll try to code new features for Blender, to warm up with the source code base, lets start with some small features first, like this one:Ray length output for LightPathNode: As you can see in the above picture, the absorbed light Rays gets lost inside the material, and the reflected/transmitted rays can escape, the more reflected/transmitted rays the more transparent is the material, the more absorbed Rays the more darker is the surface.What was missing in Cycles was the ability to reproduce the absorption based on the distance that light rays travel inside the surface, as you may guess the final absorption effect will be based on the density of those tiny impurity particles and how wide is the object.

Now, the ray distance output actually gives you the distance of the light traveled, thus you can create a cool node setup to recreate, for example the absorption of the glass based on how wide the object it is:Cycles tests: Cheers!
Cycles Render Settings Explained: Sampling and Light Paths. Jonathan Lampel writes: All of Blender Cycles' sampling and light path settings explained in one video.

Soft lighting through translucent material in cycles. In production environment it is sometimes necessary to cheat light source in the scene, as there is no way that we can bounce light around a room in the exact way the real world does it.

In a 3d environment there will be a limit to the amount of time a light bounces around, in the real world ... pretty much infinite. You will often read about artist creating light sources that aren't suppose to be there in order for 3d scenes to look right. That's where the artistic license come into play. In fact in real life photography, professional camera operator often use reflectors and strobe lights to create extra lighting information to illuminate a rather boring room. If you do not have enough light in the scene place and area light source around or beside your camera and tilt it around. The Second option is to composite your image.
Creative Shrimp. Leaf Shader for Cycles by xaotherion on DeviantArt. How to use/install Node Groups in Blender. Use Node Groups in your current Blender File: You have found a nice Node Group you like to use in a .blend File you’re working on.

How do you get this inside this .blend to use it? Open the .blend File you want to use the Node Group inClick on File – Append (Shift+F1)Select the .blend File that contains that Node GroupYou see the Folders inside this .blend file, click on NodeTreeselect/click the Node Group you want (press Shift for multiple selection)and hit Link/Append from Library on top rightThe Node Group is now usable in Node Editor – Add – Groupdepending if it is a Node Group for Cycles/Blender Internal or Compositor you might need to switch Node Editor to this type (three little icons on bottom of Node Editor Area)Node Group is saved only as long as it is used in this .blend file (If you don’t use it, save it and reopen the file, the Node Group is gone.

Lighting tips from the Masters. What do I know about lighting after all?

After my previous post on setting up a three layer SSS shader, a few people asked for tips on how to light their characters to best show them off. As it happens, this something I’m rather interested in, and I’ve had a blog post on the subject brewing for a while, so I’ve finally found the motivation to finally write it up.
Understanding Digital Colors. When used correctly, color can change the mood of the image, or impact the story.

It can also draw the viewers eyes to a focal element. In the image below, digital colors are used effectively to focus your attention on the tube. And the controlled color palette also helps keep the image calm. Created by Cornelius Dämmrich. Blender Lighting Tutorial - Blender Guru. Ever find yourself placing lamps randomly in the hopes your scene will look good?

You’re not alone. Lighting is a pretty daunting topic if you don’t understand the theory.
6 Tips for Better Lighting. The difference between a boring image and an outstanding image can often just come down to the lighting.

Controlling HDRI Lighting with Nodes. I’ve seen a couple of posts recently on getting more control over HDR based lighting setups, specifically in terms of getting crisper shadows. In particular Reyante Martinez and Greg Zaal each posted some great setups that used the colour of an HDRI map as the input to the strength node of a background shader. I thought I’d add my own experiments to the mix.

HDRi Lighting Tricks. Gleb Alexandrov shares 4 tips for lighting with HDRi maps in his rapid-fire format. Modern render engines like Vray and Cycles make believable lighting extremely easy to achieve with environment mapping. This means we can plug in an image to A) contribute a large amount of ambient light to our scene and B) provide a world of reflections for our reflective objects. Without such a texture map we would need to model and light a huge scene to get the same ambient light and reflection contribution.

Generally the best environment mapping results are achieved with HDRi images. Unfortunately they tend to slow down render times and increase noise.
How to Make Atmospheric Lighting in Blender. Whispers of anticipation for Volumetrics have been heard amongst the Blender community for a while now. Why? Because it allows you to create stuff like smoke, fire, fog, haze or basically any material that fills the air. And as of a couple of months ago, it was finally added to Cycles :)
Using Portals to Accelerate your Render Times. Interior scenes are notorious for taking a ridiculously long time to render – just two years ago I was working on a scene that took an entire month to render.

But if I were to render that scene today using portals, it would have finished in a fraction of the time. Portal lamps are a new feature in Blender 2.75 that help Blender understand your scene, and thus speed up rendering significantly. To create a portal, simply add an Area Lamp and check the “Portal” box in the lamp settings: This will tell Blender not to emit any actual light from the Area Lamp, but instead use it to guide rays towards the environment light. This usually means less noise in your render, and thus you can use less samples and finish rendering sooner.
World — Blender Reference Manual.

Blender Sushi: CYCLES / Hair! (Strand Info node)
After a while, I realized that Procedural Animation is really different from Manual Animation. Both creates movements and beautiful visual that can entertain many, but the thinking is different. This is probably obvious for long time animators that got exposed to both. Not something that you need to think about, when working. It just happens. What I mean by Manual Animation in computer is what is rooting originated from Traditional Animation, frame by frame, pose to pose. Procedural Animation, however, it is more like about automation.
Blender Tutorial 01 - Random Color Material by Obsidianmoon13 on DeviantArt. Cycles - How to change hair color along length of strand?

A complete IOR list. Here's a long list with ior values you can use when you create various materials and liquids and much more. This is a compilation of various ior lists scattered all around the web, so there may be duplicates in the list but they're there for comparison purposes and so you can pick either ior value that fits your specific needs.
5 Tips for Better Materials. 7 Ways to Get Rid of Fireflies In a Blender Render. Fireflies are those tiny burnt out pixels, that ruin an otherwise great Blender render.
The Cycles Shader Encyclopedia. [Blender Cycles] 8 Indispensable cycles node configurations. Cycles Grass 2. This is my second version of Cycles Grass.
[New Tutorial]: Cycles Realistic Grass. Making grass in Cycles – Tutorial. A complete IOR list. Nodes - How to mask animated objects so they aren't visible past a certain area?
Blender - Plane Tracking 3ème partie (les masques) - Pole Blender.

[Blender 2.5] 3D Object used as a mask. Each object is rendered to a different RenderLayer, with the power of node compositing you can have layers interact with each other and result to a proper masking, making the integration between the background and the 3D objects almost great.Procedure of creation:0.
Rendering - How to use an object as a mask?
How to Render onto a Photo Background. 1.
Reconstruction 3D avec VisualSFM. Installation sur Ubuntu 12.04 64 bits.
A Script to Skin a Point Cloud (for Blender 2.6x or Later)
Extreme SfM: fast data acquisition and particular light condition. Converting pictures into a 3D mesh with PPT, MeshLab and Blender. Mesh - Can blender create a topology of a face from real camera? (photogrammetry)
3D mesh captured from video!
Realistic Smoke in Blender. Tracking video avec Voodoo. Blender 3D Design Course - All PDF Tutorials. Animated Procedural Textures.

[TUT] Video editing with Blender: The Compositor. 3D View — Blender Reference Manual. Understanding the Power of the Skin Modifier in Blender. Why Are Ngons and Triangles so Bad?